We sure could make Iraq and national security our lead most every day for the next year.

Today on that, read the props-earning Anne Kornblut in the Boston Globe with her reporting out of last month's Ed Gillespie memo fleshing out the aggressive "pre-emption" politics the White House is expected to practice.

Then read the Philadelphia Inquirer's exclusive report on the CIA's view that change in Iraq policy is needed pronto, or bad(der) things might happen, and try to figure out if it is connected in any way to all those high-energy Bremer meetings and stories about said meetings. LINK

The president plans on doing some Brit interviews today, including with a Mr./Sir David Frost.

On the Democratic side there are three main areas to watch today:

First and foremost is — surprise — Howard Dean.

Today's we-can't-wait SEIU/AFSCME endorsement gets Big History treatment from Dan Balz, Ron Brownstein, and Steve Greenhouse, with Balz getting off the best of three strong efforts because he gets interviews with both Stern and McEntee, and because he gets the bagels and lox color. LINK and LINK and LINK

But there's more.

As the Wall Street Journal 's John Harwood uses his column to join the "maybe nobody can stop this guy from getting the nomination" chorus, USA Today 's Jill Lawrence (with a must-read) and the Chicago Tribune's Tim Jones both write up Dean's temperament, Jones in an excellent profile. LINK and LINK

Bill Safire fills out the other side of the Dean equation (the notion about which Safire is gleeful and many Democrats fearful — that Dean will lose more than 40 states to President Bush), with a classic column looking at how the "Kennedy left" and the "Clinton middle" are "frantic at the prospect of losing control of their party to Howard Dean," thus the alleged "Kennedyization" of Camp Kerry. LINK